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Does your kid have difficulty spelling? It's perfectly normal for kids to have difficulty learning to spell well. Boys tend to find the subject especially challenging; according to Marks (2003), 80% of boys have spelling trouble at some point.

Unfortunately, schools tend to teach spelling as an isolated subject, which means children learn their weekly spelling words just well enough to write them correctly for the test on Friday. They won't be able to correctly spell the words in their own practical writing, and by next week they won't remember how to write them in a list either.

In fact, having spelling words doesn't really help at all unless the child can use those words and become familiar with them in many different situations.

Rather than being assigned a weekly spelling list, children should work with their teachers and parents to create a list of words they have misspelled in their own writing. These are words they want to use, so they become relevant instead of arbitrary.

Have the child pick a word each week, and write it on index cards placed around the house at his or her eye-level. Make sure the child sees the word-of-the-week correctly spelled all over the place.

Have at least one short discussion about the word-of-the-week each day, to help the child get a real sense of what it means and how they feel about it, as well as providing an opportunity to use the word in conversation.

Reading is an important part of learning to spell, and spelling is an important part of learning to read. By reading regularly, a child becomes familiar with the way words should look. The more words he or she reads, the better they will be able to identify a word that looks wrong.

Fortunately for your child, any reading is good reading. As Clever (2008) shows, comic books and graphic novels are excellent reading material for children. The engaging stories with pictures help children make visual associations with words.

Spelling is very much a visual concept. Inventing superheroes and making comics about them is a really wonderful activity for a child with spelling trouble. Practical writing is the very best way for a child to practice spelling and figure out which words are personally important to them.

Surprisingly, children who have behavioral problems during traditional school activities often become intensely focused on comic-creation projects. This type of activity takes the focus off their reading and writing skills and focuses on their creativity and story-telling skills instead.

At the same time, these children are rapidly developing literacy and building spelling skills without even knowing it.

The key to solving spelling problems is not just to make the spelling words relevant, but also to find words that the child feels are relevant.

REFERENCES

Clever, S 2008, 'Comics and Graphic Novels,' Scholastic, New York, NY.

Marks, D 2003. 'Spelling Word a Week,' Practical Homeschooling, Jan-Feb, p 31.